The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Law. Edited by Brent A. Strawn,. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 2015. 2 vols. Pp. 1176. $395.00 (cloth). ISBN: 9780199843305 .

The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Law. Edited by Brent A. Strawn. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 2015. 2 vols. Pp. 1176. $395.00 (cloth). ISBN: 9780199843305.

The Bible has exerted an inestimable impact on contemporary culture throughout much of the world. In few other areas is this impact felt more than in its impact on legal systems and the law. For example, the Bible was used by antebellum Southerners to justify the existence of slavery, while it was later used by Martin Luther King, Jr. to argue against the disparate treatment of African-Americans that occurred under Jim Crow laws. The Bible has also been used to argue both for and against the death penalty. During this reviewer's tenure as criminal defense practitioner, numerous jurors disclosed during voir dire that their philosophy of punishment was primarily grounded on the principle of lex talionis, as enumerated in the Old Testament. In the past, laws have been enacted in accordance with biblical law, while more recent law is sometimes a repudiation of biblical law. Accordingly, it is necessary to have a strong grasp on the biblical concepts of law to understand the development of law in much of the world.

Brent Strawn has edited a two-volume encyclopedia that will assist an array of scholars, pastors, and lay readers to understand the Bible's approaches to law as well as the influence that those approaches have had, for example, on contemporary issues in criminal law or gender (in)equality. The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Law (OEBL) is bound in two attractive, burgundy-colored volumes that are roughly of equal length. The pages of the OEBL are standard copy page size, 8.5 x 11 inches. The spine of each volume notes the coverage of that volume: “Vol. 1 Adm–Lit,” “Vol 2 Mag–Wom.” The first volume has an alphabetical list of the 106 primary entries that occur in both volumes; the list also denotes the eleven primary entries that have multiple sub-entries (thirty-five subentries in total). Both volumes contain a sixteen-page list of abbreviations that are used in the articles.

Volume 2 contains some additional information after its article entries that is not included in volume 1. “Topical Outline of Contents” covers six topics: (1) “Later Legal Traditions (Non-...